TOPOGRAPHY OF VICTORIA. 



391 



pastoral landscape freshened by winding streams, and populous with flocks and herds ; 

 while, in one secluded nook, a water-fall leaps rejoicingly down from a ledge of rock a 

 hundred feet high to join the Wimmera on the northern plains. 



Thirty miles to the north-east of Mount Zero, which marks the termination of the 

 Grampians in a northerly direction, there rises abruptly from the dead level of an exten- 

 sive plain, abounding in miniature lakes, both salt and fresh these lying sometimes 

 almost side by side a curiously fantastic mass of rock, one- thousand one hundred and 

 and seventy-six feet in height, which has received the name of Mount Arapiles. In its 

 horizontal laminations and vertical fissures, it resembles the stupendous foundation walls 





MOUNT ARAPILES. 



of some vast edifice planned and commenced by Titans, and then abandoned, leaving 

 Nature to adorn the ruin, according to her gracious wont, by crowning its summit with 

 forest-trees, and weaving a robe of foliage about its feet. A little to the northward of 

 it, surmounting a wooded mound, is another columnar rock, but of very much smaller 

 dimensions, with a cleft crest, whence it has derived the appellation of the Mitre Rock. 

 Near by is a salt-water pool which has received the name of the Mitre Lake, and it 

 stands midway between two sheets of water, Lake Natimuk and St. Mary's Lake, both 

 of which are fresh. 



Northward of the Grampians and Mount Arapiles the country slopes gradually 

 downward to the Murray, with scarcely a hill to break the monotonous level of the 

 landscape, and the malice scrub commences within about seven miles from the Mitre Rock. 

 In the sandy soil of the district the trees, from which it takes its name, thrive amidst 

 the most discouraging circumstances, covering the ground so thickly in places as to form 



